Sunday, August 23, 2009

America vs. Health Care

Could someone tell me exactly why health care reform is causing such a rift at town-hall meetings across the U.S.?

When I first saw the rambunctiousness on CNN, I was waiting for someone to yell, “Get your salmon, trout and tilapia right here!” I thought it was a scene from a local fish market and I wondered whether the recession had gotten so bad that people are now forced to fight over food.

If folks are that worked-up about health care, they should simply form an activist group and lead a campaign to Capitol Hill. One man’s plea will never be heard in a room filled with litigious advocates.

Even the Democrats are in a divisive heat over health care reform. Blue Dog Democrats are furious about a public option for health care. They believe it’s the first step toward a government takeover of health care. And, with President Obama hinting a renege on the public health option, it doesn’t make things any better for those who are in support of it.

Verbal battles will not bring a solution to health care. In fact, it will only cause it to remain the same. A proposal + too many naysayers = nothing.

In 1993, the Clinton Administration proposed a health care package closely associated with then First Lady, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Its goal was to provide universal health care for all Americans. The plan was to enforce a mandate for employers to provide health insurance to all of their employees using competitive but regulated health care organizations. Democrats failed to unite over the plan and created competing plans of their own. As a result, the final bill was declared dead.

If history does repeat itself, we probably don’t need a soothsayer to tell us the fate of Obama’s health care reform plan. Sadly, millions of Americans are literally dying because they cannot afford health care. Millions are praying for affordable health care and millions are hoping they don’t get sick because they don’t have health care.

Perhaps Congress has not yet figured out that together we’re fighting, dying, praying and hoping for a solution to health care. We need just one. One that works!

2 comments:

The Republicans need an issue to rally around to spread their brand of fear (see Palin; death panels). Furthermore, the issue has a big one so that if they "defeat" Obama, they can make it sound like they saved the U.S. fropm socialism.

Personally, I think the President is trying to fo too much too soon. The defivit is high enough and to throw more money out there on a plan that no one is sure how it will be funded, is unwise. This is an issue I think he could have put off for a year or two.

I've already made my position clear to the Obama Administration as well as my Senator Dick Durbin. (He's a real nice guy. His people always respond to my e-mails.) I live in his district in Chicago. I'm also a member of MoveOn, AARP, connect with CNN's Don Lemon and a recipient of Soc. Sec. -- government funded health care. *smile*

As you probably know, the fight is being staged by the GOP and medical insurance companies -- big bucks. Some members of Congress hold stock in big insurance companies and fear these companies are going to get kicked aside or limited. They stand to lose a lot of money. I can feel their energy when I watch the demonstrations at the townhall meetings.

I disagree that President should wait and move some of the other projects off the table first. Health Care is one of the biggest federal expenses and will continue to rise if some adjustments are not made now.

Hospitals are opting out of treating low-income individuals and people (including children) on Medicaid today. I live 7 blocks from the University of Chicago Health Center and can't get treated there. Oh, they'll run me through ER, patch me up and send me to another clinic.

We are in worse shape now because of the folks without jobs and suffering from life threatening illnesses. No insurance company is going to step in and cover them. They cannot wait.

Insurance companies were handed a blank check by the Bush Administration and they feel untouchable. I say write the so-called Health Express into the bill and make the insurance companies compete for patients with lower prices. And stop the cherry picking.

The demonstrations are a good thing. Get it all out there now, so when Congress returns in September they can get down to business and pull together, adjust wherever, a bill. Most intelligent people know that the President cannot create and pass a health care bill alone, he can only propose. He has to have the support of Congress.

To lose the health care fight would deal a serious blow to President Obama's credibility everywhere. They (the losers, GOP) want him to lose this fight, that's a known fact.

I can't see telling people dying of cancer or whatever because of no health coverage. Where would I be suffering with diabetes and all the ills of aging if I didn't have government health insurance known as Medicare. Dead. Insurance companies refused to cover me because of my pre-existing condition.

We need to pull out the big guns on the first day Congress returns to Washington. I'm an armchair politician and ready for the fight. :)

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About Me

Professional writer, journalist, political satirist, and social commentator Denrique Preudhomme delivers writing appeal to a variety of readers.
She is the author of a book of thought-provoking social and political articles, The Undisguised Truth, a book of riveting short fiction, Stranger Than Fiction and a book of moving poems, Reflections of Realism. She is the recipient of the Urban Spectrum Newspaper National Writers Award, and is profiled in Marquis Who’s Who in America®. She is currently writing her next book, a thriller titled Deception is Reality.
Denrique is a foreign scholar in the field of Creative Arts and the owner of The Creative Writer, a professional writing services company based in Washington, DC.